You Need an Incident Response Plan Before a Cyberattack

With remote access work at an all-time high, it is inevitable that you will eventually face some kind of cyberattack. However, waiting for an attack to happen before devising an incident response plan is not good business judgment. Pre-planning your data breach response is your best chance to recover from a cyberattack and mitigate the exposure and damage caused.

What Should a Company Do After a Data Breach?

• Confirm the Breach – One ploy used by hackers is to pretend to be a trusted source and claim they have just been victims of a cyberattack. By gaining your trust and convincing you they have been attacked and you are therefore in peril, they can manipulate you into sharing confidential information under the guise of “working together” to solve and recover from the attack. You must perform your due diligence to be sure you are not a victim of this ploy. Don’t automatically accept warning messages as fact.
  • Assess the Damage – If someone broke into your home, you would want to know how the intruder got in and what was stolen. The same approach applies to cyberattacks. Breaches of company financial data and trade secrets can lead to bankruptcy for small or midsized businesses. In the event of a cyberattack, it is imperative to determine the hacker’s entry point, the magnitude of the attack and how to mitigate the damage. Consulting a cyber security professional for a Cyber Risk Analysis can help you take the necessary steps to protect your hard-earned company data.
  • If a credit or debit card account has been compromised as part of the breach, canceling the card will generally stop financial exposure. Then, by initiating a fraud investigation, your bank or credit institution will investigate the source of the attack. In response to your security breach, most banks will refund the loss after investigating the attack.
• Accept Support From the Source of the Breach – Once you’ve confirmed that an organization warning you of a cyberattack is legitimate if they offer services to correct or mitigate the damage caused, accept their help. A large banking institution is likely to have more robust resources for dealing with data breaches. It will be very willing to partner with you to resolve all the security threats as quickly as possible.
• Contact Credit Bureaus and Lenders – Credit bureaus can mark your accounts for fraud alerts so that they can monitor the accounts for suspicious activity. They can also notify you and guard against a hacker opening up new accounts or taking out new loans in your name.
• Carefully Review All Your Financial Accounts – In overlooking notices of late payments, banking overdrafts or letters from the IRS, you could be missing early warning signs of a data breach.
• Reassess Passwords and Add Multi-Step Authentications – After a data breach, it is essential that you create new credentials for all of your password-protected accounts. Efficient Password Management and strong Multi-Factor Authentication are always essential layers of security. After a data breach, the creation of all new credentials is imperative. The safest approach is to assume the perpetrator of the hack has compromised everything.

Creating an Incident Response Plan

The FTC https:// www.ftc.gov/ tips-advice/ business-center /guidance/ data-breach-response- guide-business outlines the central tenets of an Incident Response Plan, including:

• Securing Your Operations – Lock it down. Multiple attacks could take down your business, so ensuring that the attacks do not continue is of paramount importance.
• Engaging Cyber Security Experts – Specialists armed with cyber forensics tools and experience can dive deeply into your system and network to ensure all threats have been neutralized.
• Isolating the Access Points – Your team must identify and segregate the breached access points to ascertain how the hacker gained entry and prevent further attacks.
• Fixing the Vulnerabilities – Once isolating the vulnerable access points, your cybersecurity team can recommend fixes and additional layers of cyber security required to prevent future data breaches.
• Consulting an Attorney – If you have a small to midsized business bound by strict compliance or privacy laws, you should solicit an attorney's advice to ensure everyone’s rights are protected.

DIGIGUARD Cyber Security Knows How to Best Protect Your Business Data

If you’ve already been the victim of a data breach, you know you have to take immediate steps to ensure it never happens again. If you have not yet fallen victim to a cybercrime, you should act now. You might be using some of these protective measures already. But as your business grows and adds more devices such as smart controls, wireless access and remote access, your network surface attack area for hackers grows, too. DIGIGUARD, which specializes in preventing cyber threats, has a wide array of solutions to protect against cybercrimes. It works with small and midsized businesses to establish cyber security best practices to ensure their confidential data has the best protection possible. Many companies bound by strict compliance and privacy laws such as law firms, medical practices and financial service institutions cannot afford data breaches. For any business, cyberattacks can have devastating consequences. DIGIGUARD can assess your cyber risks and work with you to ensure you have the best protection solution for your business.

Call DIGIGUARD CYBER SECURITY at 833-33-CYBER (833-332-9237) and visit www.DIGIGUARDsecurity.com to increase your level of cyber security and protect your company’s and clients’ data.